Is my gaze on a woman tyrannical? Knowing what I mean by it, I shouldn’t have to ask the question, but I ask because I am not, apparently, allowed to judge. Am I looking upon her with appreciation or aggression? Perception trumps intent. What she sees is what I intend. I’d better not look. I’d better not even want to look. Who knows into what depths my lascivious intentions can be followed. Perception is the tyranny here in the Blame Age. My gaze injects her with fear. My gait, my stance–my very being!–how menacing they must be! How dare I! What am I? Some kind of monster? I’m sorry for both of us. I’ll retire to my manacles in the garret and allow you the run of the castle. Which one of us will be lonelier?

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There is more past behind me than future ahead of me. The end is nearer than the beginning. I see it more clearly. The past is full of innumerable presents I never had time to understand. The future promises that understanding, but the wisdom awarded smacks of consolation: What do I do with it? The future will be spent stoically mopping milk, dusting the thick-grown regret from the surfaces of a half-lived life at least three-quarters done. Wondering if living alone is worse than dying alone. Peeling away identities curling at the edges. Appreciation of, after resignation to, what’s left after the cleanup, gradually acclimating to the stark gleam of the end of tunnel.

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What a mess, this life. To have so much but to be ungrateful for want of what I don’t and angry with impatience and frustration at its elusiveness. Where is the progress within this recursive nightmare of conscious striving against unconscious knowledge? One of them must give up. Neither can: One has good reason, the other indigenous dominion. Cooperation? Chatter crossing chatter, layer upon layer, louder and louder. Amidst this, how does one appreciate life? Were these warring factions but a package, I would wrap them in lead and throw them in the ocean. Were they tumors, I would cut them out and simply be what’s left. I couldn’t complain then; I would be incapable. Would I be incapacitated, as well? Would I be left with ignorance or acceptance? my self or no one at all?

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Closer to the truth is that I’m not trying to get over Herself at all. I’m trying to savor the experience, distill it into a good thing. I’m trying to appreciate the meaning of her to me. I don’t like not feeling something when I think about her, so I conjure up a little tension. That’s what I miss. Which came first? the tension or the inspiration? Too close to call. Of the many moments and encounters with her, the fond ones are the far fewer than the tense ones. Sometimes they were the same. But I had only a few months to compile those before I drove the train off the track with, “You fascinate me.” I have spent much more time with the tension since then. Reminiscing on the fond moments–when the playfulness dancing in her eyes was an invitation to my grandest hopes–warms and softens my bitterness, but the proximity and quantity of the tension chills and hardens again. And here I am now, with a weary, uneasy truce, trying to reconcile and understand, trying to keep both the good and bad at bay, to keep passion’s colors from tinting the black-and-white of my comprehension. Then it all comes out the color of her hair.